Is the U.S. to blame for gun violence in Mexico?

Mexican army troops confiscated drugs and an arsenal, including rocket-launchers, from a house in the western state of Jalisco, Mexico.

It’s a constant drone of accusations and finger-pointing: The United States is responsible for the violence on the streets of Mexico that is edging the country close to a state of anarchy. Yes, we Americans who represent only about 6 percent of the world’s population consume nearly 90 percent of the world’s drugs and, thus, represent the key marketplace for South American cocaine and other drugs shipped via Mexico into the United States. Clearly, serious steps in the realm of education, socialization and media have to come into play to somehow try to reduce that consumption rate. But let’s examine the violence associated with this “drug war.” Amidst the violence, the terror, the beheadings, the senselessness of it all, it is the sheer overwhelming use of firepower by the cartels that stands out: fully automatic military-grade machine guns as high as .50 caliber, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), grenades and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) are being used in this war between the seven cartels and the government of Mexico — as well as between the cartels and their rival factions — for control of the “plazas” or distribution routes. As one organization is taken out, another quickly moves in to fill the vacuum and establish control of that plaza through violence, mayhem and intimidation. Some recent activities appear to come right out of the terror playbooks of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) or even Al Qaeda.

President Felipe Calderón of Mexico, in his spring visit to the United States, admonished the U.S. and the availability of weapons in the United States for causing of the weapons-related violence in Mexico. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton echoed similar sentiments during a visit to Mexico City earlier this year. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California claims 90 percent of the guns killing police, judges and mayors in Mexico come from the United States, and the media constantly beats a similar drum regarding the United States and our lax gun laws feeding the violence in Mexico.

The fact is, only a small percentage of the guns linked to drug-related violence in Mexico actually come from the United States.

Mexican law enforcement and the military, working jointly with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and other U.S. agencies, have passed along the identity of seized guns with obvious markings and serial numbers for tracing and further identification. The operative word here is traceable weapons. In these instances, where seized weapons have serial numbers and can be traced, a significant portion will be traced to the United States, and that’s where the media and politicians hang their hat. But to stop there and characterize the problem as one with purely American roots is unfair, and, frankly, disingenuous. The real fact is, over 80 percent of the weapons seized at Mexican crime scenes are untraceable and never submitted to U.S. authorities. Those traceable U.S. firearms actually only represent about 17 percent of guns and weapons found at Mexican crime scenes.

So where do these guns come from? On the surface, a cursory review of the high-powered military-grade seized weaponry — grenades, RPGs, .50-caliber machine guns — clearly indicates this weaponry is not purchased at gun shows in the United States and can’t even be found commercially available to consumers in the United States. The vast majority of the weaponry used in this “drug war” comes into Mexico through the black market and the wide-open, porous southern border of Mexico and Guatemala. This black market emanates from a variety of global gunrunners with ties to Russian organized crime and terror groups with a firm foothold in Latin America such as the FARC, as well as to factions leftover from the civil wars in Central America during the 1980’s. Chinese arms traffickers have managed to disperse weapons, particularly grenades, on the streets of Mexico. In addition, many of the Mexican military-issued, Belgian-made automatic M-16s currently in the hands of traffickers have been pilfered from military depots and the thousands who have deserted the Mexican army in recent years.

The Mexican cartels have evolved into a diverse federation of narco-terrorists with a presence in 47 countries; they have direct ties to international organized crime groups in India and China for their precursor chemicals in the growing methamphetamine market, and to the Italian Calabria mafia, ‘Ndrangheta, for the distribution of cocaine in the lucrative European market. Mexican cartels have diversified their criminal enterprises to include not only global drug distribution but also human smuggling, kidnapping, extortion and penetration of business supply chains — as well as the counterfeiting of software products, music and videos. The Mexican cartels, who clearly have established a global footprint and conservatively realize annual profits approaching $50 billion (that’s billion with a “b”), are not realistically going to establish straw buyers at U.S. gun shows when the merchants of death in Russia, China, Latin-America, Israel and South Africa are willing to peddle their wares.

Americans are not fully responsible for the gun-related violence in Mexico — but we are responsible for the creation of the world’s premier drug marketplace for the cartels and their surrogates.

To that end, as a society, we have a responsibility to intelligently consider solutions to this problem that we share with our neighbors to the south.

James G. Conway Jr. is a former FBI special agent and program manager of FBI counterterrorism operations in Latin America. He is currently the president and managing director of Global Intel Strategies, Inc., a Houston-based firm that consults with, advises and trains government agencies, academia and the media on terrorism and national security matters; the firm also works with private sector corporations on security issues, counterterrorism measures and risk mitigation. Conway blogged as a guest of Joan Neuhaus Schaan, Baker Institute fellow in homeland security and terrorism.